Sunday, July 11, 2010

• Soundings

  Sunday, September 5, 2010
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  Sunday, August 29, 2010
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  Sunday, August 22, 2010
• Soundings

  Sunday, August 15, 2010

Our family is sprouting babies. The Howell, Barraza and Hubbs households are about to produce the next round of grandchildren and our first great-grandchild.

What do we know about babies?

Well, this: Just 4 percent of them are born on their due date.

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Then there's this: We start our lives with 350 bones -- but because they fuse together as we grow, we end up with only 206 as adults.

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And this: Pound for pound, a baby is as strong as an ox.

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Ringo (Starkey) Starr is on tour at the age of 70.

On his birthday last Wednesday, Ringo asked everyone -- "I'm talking about you in Florida, in Atlanta, in L.A., wherever" -- to "put your fingers up and go, 'peace and love,' that would be great, that's the world's present to me ... I have a fantasy that one day that whole world at noon on July 7 will go, 'peace and love.'"

The phrase may have "started in the '60s," says the former Beatle, "but I like to equate it with a flower -- that's when the flower started opening and it's still opening."

Ringo's latest solo album, his 15th, is called "Y Not."

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Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor of Great Britain, who visited the United States last week, is the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

She ascended the throne in 1952, when she was 25. (Queen Elizabeth I was also 25 when she became Queen in 1533.)

During her reign, Queen Elizabeth II has owned more than 30 corgis, most of them direct descendants of Susan who was a present for her 18th birthday in 1944. The Queen currently has five corgis: Emma, Linnet, Monty, Holly and Willow.

Her Majesty also introduced a new breed of dog known as the "dorgi" when one of her corgis mated with a dachshund named Pipkin, who belonged to Princess Margaret. The Queen currently has four dorgis: Cider, Berry, Candy and Vulcan.

The Queen claims ownership of 88 cygnets on the River Thames. Since the 12th century the royal swans have been cared for by the Swan Marker.

According to a statute from 1324, the crown also owns all the sturgeons, whales and porpoises in the waters around the United Kingdom, which are recognized as "fishes royal."

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There are numerous species less visible than pelicans and sea turtles that are now at risk following the oil rupture in the Gulf.

Dependent on habitat found only on National Wildlife Refuges is the Alabama beach mouse. Five to six inches long, including its tail, this tiny rodent once inhabited a wide stretch of the coastline but can only be found anymore at Bon Secour Refuge. Normally the mouse's dune-dwelling habits give it a survival edge over shore-dwellers such as terns and pelicans, but a hurricane could drive oil inland and poison the mouse or kill the plants it feeds on.

"The beach mouse would probably no longer exist if not for Bon Secour," reports Jereme Phillips, manager of the refuge. "If it were to disappear, you'd lose all of the small mammals in that ecosystem. It plays an important role in spreading seeds and helping to increase vegetation. And it serves as prey for owls, snakes, the red fox and great horned owl. We don't really know what happens if you remove a species -- and we don't want to find out."

Another small mammal, the salt marsh vole, is a seldom-seen refuge dweller in harm's way if currents or storms take oil to the Big Bend area of the Gulf coast, an area that reaches from Tallahassee to Tampa. The vole, said Phillips, is a shy creature and not easily studied, living in tidal grasses often reached only by airboat.

"If worse comes to worst," says wildlife biologist Billy Brooks of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Ecological Services office in Jacksonville, "and many voles die from oil exposure, biologists might have to consider capturing survivors and removing them from the wild -- a desperate action that scientists normally try to avoid."

Seventy migratory species, including peregrine falcons, snowy plovers and long-billed curlews, will soon arrive exhausted and hungry on Gulf islands and barrier sand flats and will hunt for insects, marine worms and crustaceans.

"We don't know how heavily oiled they will have to become to figure out their food source isn't there," says wildlife biologist Patty Kelly, with the Endangered Species and Ecological Services office in Panama City. To Kelly, the world would be much the poorer without the plover: "It's a beautiful species with a fascinating lifestyle," she says. "And it's one of the spokes in the wheel. How many can we lose before the wheel falls off? Nobody knows."

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Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson has advised consumers to be on the lookout for scams arising out of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Bogus charities are often identifiable through their unsolicited e-mails or phone calls asking for contributions, coupled with high-pressure pitches for donations. Legitimate charities rarely engage in such tactics.

Before giving to any unfamiliar charity, call the Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services at 1-800-435-7352 or check the Division of Consumer Services website at www.800helpfla.com to determine if it's registered with the department and to check its complaint history.

Beware of any organization or business that sends unsolicited e-mails offering jobs, especially ones that request personal financial information such as a social security number, bank account or credit cards. "It is critical that citizens who want to help are dealing with legitimate organizations," said Bronson, "and that those who need assistance are dealing with businesses and financial institutions that will help, not hurt them."

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A con job from last week's e-mail:

WINNING NOTICE

Ref No. 2239874/2048

Batch No. 549/00877342911

Ticket/Series No. NL7218098

Amount Won: $1,450,000.00

Attn: Winner

BP has reached agreement on a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This is to formally inform and congratulate you on the result of the online cyber lotto which was conducted from an exclusive list of 1,000 e-mail addresses of individual and corporate bodies selected by an advanced automated random computer ballot system from the internet.

Your e-mail address emerged as a winner in the category "A." You are therefore to receive a cash prize of $1,450,000.00 (One Million Four Hundred And Fifty Thousand United States Dollars).

To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to contact our Certified and Accredited fiduciary agent for category "A:"

KELVIN BROWN, Phone: +60 1 262 934 04

EMAIL: fiduciaryagt@aim.com

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"The real problem is the entire concept of economic growth," writes Joel Curzon, the author of "Light Fading: Reflections on the Imperiled Everglades." He is a Harvard-educated lawyer who gave up practicing law to pursue nature photography as a tool for environmental activism.

"As long as we continue to believe that the economy must constantly grow, we will inevitably continue to destroy our environment," he says in "Light Fading," arguing that today's "wise growth" movements are nothing but a fig leaf for land developers.

"The so-called compromise between business and environmentalists is no compromise at all. We have already permitted far too much environmental destruction. Anything short of a total halt on additional development means that we still endorse it.

"We need new world views, new philosophies of existence, that put the importance of the world's ecosystems at or above the level of its economic systems."

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"Go" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

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Parents, grandparents, foster and adoptive parents are all celebrated this Parent's Day, July 25, from 4 to 10 p.m. at Boondocks Grille and Miniature Golf, MM 27¬½ on Ramrod Key. The event benefits Wesley House Family Services.

Parents of any kind should bring your favorite child or children to play miniature Glo Golf and groove to the trop rock sound of Howard Livingston and the Mile Marker 24 Band.

Free popcorn and snow cones for the kids and remember, there's no school the next day.

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A Chili Crawl set for Cowboy Weekend, Saturday, July 31, seeks chili chefs. The multi-site event, which runs from 3 to 8 p.m., will benefit the Sister Season and Xena Funds supporting locals in need.

Chili will be available for tasting and judging at $1 per vote at Bobby's Monkey Bar, Aqua, Bourbon Street Pub and the 801 Boubon Bar. An 8 p.m. round-up show and awards ceremony are tentatively set for Bourbon Street Pub's Garden Bar.

Chili chefs (amateur or professional) should contact Ginger King, president of the Sister Season Fund, at 849-0991.

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Quote for the Week:

"I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast."

-- Queen Elizabeth II